Combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) has shown extraordinary success in reducing HIV transmission and prolonging life of subjects with HIV. However, in the vast majority of instances, ART does not entirely clear the virus, and may people continue to become newly infected. Thus, there is a need to identify an effective HIV vaccination method. Skountzou et al., report incorporation of glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor or CD40 ligand enhances immunogenicity of chimeric simian immunodeficiency virus-like particles. J Virol, 2007, 81(3):1083-1094. See also Hellerstein et al. Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2012, 8(11):1654-8.
Interleukin 4 (IL-4) serves as a signal to activate and elicit antibody class switching by B lymphocytes and converts naive helper T lymphocytes to active T lymphocytes. U.S. Pat. No. 6,838,081 reports enhancing the development of antigen presenting cells from precursor cells by administering a combination of IL-4 and GM-CSF. See also, U.S. Patent Application 2004/0072299, and Hikino et al., Anticancer Res, 24: 1609-1616 (2004). GIFT fusokines are the fused proteins derived from granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and cytokine transgenes. Deng et al. report a fusokine, GIFT4, generated by N-terminal coupling of GM-CSF to interleukin-4 (IL4). Cancer Res, 2014, 74:4133-4144. See also WO2014/066443.
References cited herein are not an admission of prior art.